


Five times this happened, and one time that happened

by dkscully



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-12 11:17:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5664175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dkscully/pseuds/dkscully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A group of six episode-based vignettes, trying to flesh out some ideas around the edges of the encounters between Root and Shaw. Each chapter is complete in and of itself and can be read without reference to the previous ones.</p><p>I know the title's lame, but it does kinda sum up what I was trying to achieve.</p><p>Also, apparently, I find it easier to get into Root's head. (Which just means I'll have to write more Shaw another time!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The first hit's always free...

**Author's Note:**

> These were written as an exercise in stretching my rusty writing skills and getting to know the characters a bit better.
> 
> Feel free to let me know if anything I've done really doesn't work.
> 
> ***
> 
> I normally wouldn't post a work in progress, because I don't have a good track record of finishing them, but I know where this is going and I think I can manage to get it done. Not least because I *really* want to get the last piece, which is already done, off my hard drive and into the aether.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a short think piece as a warm up.

She's always hated playing the secretary or PA as a cover. The work is generally soul destroyingly dull and it usually comes with a side order of ego massaging for the boss at the very least. Assuming, of course, there aren't other things that they think it's your job to massage! Root shudders a little at the memory of a previous job, before pushing it away and covering the accompanying frown with a somewhat feral grin. After all, she did get her own back on that particular Southern gentleman before the job was done.

But, since one can never be too careful - someone can always wander by at just the wrong moment, after all - she schools her face to generic blandness before turning back to the demanding task of organising her boss's ever changing calendar.

There are, however, a number of advantages to the role, which is why she still does it. After all, no one ever seems to question why a PA needs such detailed information about all the random things she goes hunting for, especially in government offices. Here in the office of Special Council, it's been particularly easy to obtain the files she's wanted. In fact, the personnel files for the two troublesome agents of an off books assassination team that her current boss is trying to have terminated for their unfortunate curiosity appeared on her desk without her even having to ask.

And what an exciting read they've made. Especially Agent Shaw's file.

Even through the descriptions that litter the file are dry as dust (and annoyingly thoroughly redacted), the things that the woman is listed as having done… why it's more than enough to make Root a little jealous of the ISA's resources and almost giddy in anticipation of a meeting!

Thankfully, the other thing that doesn't seem to attract much notice in a government office, is sudden demands for paperwork to be delivered ASAP, or preferably before. Which means she has just enough time to discover that Veronica Sinclair is a desk bound geek at the CIA, who's never been in the field since she finished her mandatory training, before heading out to impersonate her.

In fact, the woman is so completely green that Root is able to overpower her and get everything she needs from her without even needing to use her tazer.

Some people are so disappointing!

***

Much later, after a long detour to make sure she wasn't followed, Root finally slips back into the apartment that she's currently 'borrowing'. Amazingly, despite the rude interruption and subsequent necessary security precautions, there's still a vestige of the grin tugging at the corners of her lips from her little chat with the delightful Agent Shaw. She almost doesn't care that the other woman didn't, and probably couldn't, provide a useful lead in her search, just for the absolute joy it was to meet her. It's so rare for people to actually live up to her expectations, and Sam Shaw may actually have been the first person to exceed them.

_One of the things I left out of my file… I kinda enjoy this sort of thing._

The agent's breathy delivery of that line echoes in her head as she takes care of the mundane aspects of life: eating, bathing, cleaning her weapons and charging her tazer. She's pretty sure that 'using your feminine wiles' is a required course for female ISA agents, especially the ones who look like Shaw. Still, from where she was kneeling between the smaller woman's thighs, she was more than close enough to see something that looked a great deal like genuine arousal in Shaw's eyes as she held that hot iron to her face. She can only wonder what might have happened if Wilson's men hadn't been so boorish as to pick that moment to turn up.

_It would have been a shame to have to ruin such a nice face, though,_ she thinks as she gets into bed. (Another downside to being a PA is having to keep regular hours like every other wage slave.) _Especially when there are so many better things that could be done with it!_

Her subconscious is already beginning to provide her with some very interesting options as she drifts into sleep. 


	2. You are being watched...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Surveillance is key to a successful operation.

Another day, another empty office building floor. Root looks across the street at yet another heritage building wrapped in scaffolding and plastic for renovations and wonders why She has sent her here. It's not like these things aren't a dime a dozen across the Five Boroughs. Gentrification is the new normal and the folks who need affordable living spaces be damned. Not that Root really cares about the socio-economics of the city and the damage to other people's lives. She has no rent worries or fear of vengeful landlords. In fact, finding somewhere pleasant to live for a few days at a time has become almost too easy now that she has Her help.

The fifth floor apartment that she can most easily observe from this spot, exactly where she has been told to stand, is currently unoccupied. She can see ladders and dust sheets and paint and other detritus of decoration scattered through the room, however.

There's clearly a point to this jaunt, but She isn't going to give her all the answers on a plate. That's just not how She works. Since their communication has become free and unfettered, Root has come to realise that being the avatar of an AI doesn't mean that she won't also have to think, and find things out, for herself. Her God, it seems, is just as terse and cryptic as any of the more mainstream deities. She's still not entirely sure whether she's disappointed or relieved by this.

_Go_ , says the voice in her head.

Root has learned to obey some things without question, however. So, without waiting to see why, she heads towards the exit that she'd scoped out on her arrival, the one furthest from where approaching security guards might appear. She still doesn't know what this is about, but as she casually trots down the fire escape back to street level, she makes a mental note to do some digging on her own.

***

Shaw hasn't stayed in one place for more than a few days in years, and when she did, it was in barracks both here and in some of the sandier parts of the world. So now she's got a place of her own she really has no idea what to do with it. 

So far she's unpacked the duffel with her clothes into the closet and put some milk, and her weapons stash, in the fridge.

Still, it seems to make a relatively safe place to catch some sleep when time allows.

She's noticed that she still seems to be remarkably busy, despite being dead.

***

"Shell corporations all the way down," she sighs.

Not that this is going to stop her from discovering who now owns the building that She had her go look at, but it will make the search take a little bit longer.

What Root has found so far, is that the previous owners were money-grabbing slum lords. They'd been raising rents where they could and otherwise letting the place decay to near uninhabitability in an attempt to get the tenants to move away of their own 'free will'. Most unfortunately, last month, an unlikely combination of an apparently incorruptible city planning officer and the unexpected arrival of a copy of their real accounts at the local FBI office, put the owners in jail and the company out of business. Which is when the faceless shell-corp turned up and picked the place up at auction for a song.

_Deep pockets and some interesting connections_ , she thinks, and wonders who their hacker is.

The obvious play at this point would have been to finish the job the previous owners had started and go for the big bucks. However, instead of mass evictions, it seems that all the original tenants are still present and have shiny, new rent-controlled tenancy agreements. Also, the whole building is in the process of being completely updated to well beyond the required building codes, by a genuinely reputable building contractor, and each apartment fully redecorated to the specifications of the tenant.

So much altruism in one place makes Root's brain itch. She now has a pretty good idea who she'd find behind the whole project, if she could only untangle the corporate legal mess far enough. She's not entirely sure it's worth the time though, Harold's fingerprints are all over this.

_That still doesn't tell me why She sent me there, though!_

***

Root watches the old fashioned elevator dial click around to five. Apparently, this evening, the apartment she was sent to surveil previously contains a very important, and apparently fragile, package she needs to collect before she proceeds. The item is apparently guarded, however, since she's been told to take a tazer and a little something to give the guards a bit of R&R while she makes her escape.

The lobby of this floor is considerably more utilitarian than any of the other areas. The contrast reminds her of the difference between guest and staff areas in hotels. Something she's seen more of than most people, between playing the maid and using the back stairs as escape routes. The lock on the apartment door is also considerably less trivial than most that she comes across, but she still makes it inside the apartment in under thirty seconds. All things considered, however, a little heightened situational awareness is probably called for.

The apartment is no longer empty, though it would appear that it is unguarded. Whoever is occupying it, however, is clearly not the Martha Stewart type. The space has a definitely lack of soft furnishings or homely touches and is dimly illuminated by the moon and the city's lights through a the bank of not particularly clean, and still uncurtained windows she previously saw from the other side. Whitewashed raw brick walls and an uncarpeted concrete floor complement the generally Spartan aesthetic. This is not the play acting minimalism of the overly wealthy elite, but genuine "don't give a shit about comfort, just need the basics" living. At the far end of the room, what looks like a second hand patio set acts as an unused dining area in one corner, while a spotless but equally unloved kitchenette hunches against the other wall.

Racks of businesslike shelving draw Root's attention. These, it seems, contain a neatly organised cornucopia of items for the well equipped assassin. Root smiles and wonders what in particular She thinks will be of most use to her in the coming days. While she waits, still and silent, for a hint from Her, her eyes drift across the one remaining piece of furniture in the room. Something which really should have impinged on her consciousness before now.

The centre of the room contains a bed. And that bed is occupied.

Root takes a step closer, rubber soles ghosting over the hard floor almost silently, and stops dead in genuine surprise.

Root knows that the official line is that the person before her is dead; that she'd been disposed of for being overly inquisitive about matters that were above her pay grade. Well, that would be the official line if her previous employer wasn't a shadowy black ops group who don't make official statements, due to not existing on paper. The underground rumour mill has suggested otherwise, however, which has left Root with some hope.

_Though_ , she thinks a little irritably, _the rumour mill does also say that she's working with Harold and his little band of do-gooders, now._

Still, a genuine smile wafts across the hacker's face, and she whispers a quiet thank you to the mechanical voice in her head. This particular 'item' should make her goals in coming days, whaterver they turn out to be, considerably easier to achieve and a great deal more fun, too. She's not going to come quietly, however, which does explain Her suggestion of the tazer and the drugs.

Root notices that asleep, Sameen Shaw looks much smaller, more insubstantial and considerably less angry, than she does when awake, but somehow no less powerful or dangerous.

Or attractive.

Tazer at the ready, Root finds herself reflexively balling her free hand into a fist, to keep from reaching out and brushing an errant strand of hair away from the other woman's face. She knows that it would be the height of stupidity to put herself within arm's reach of a known threat, one who's hand-to-hand combat skills far outmatch her own too, but she suddenly aches to run her fingers down the smooth cheek.

She's not entirely sure whether it's her breathing that catches or that of the woman in front of her waking up, but those dark eyes are open now and their heated gaze is locked on to her. The danger that former-Agent Shaw presents is no longer merely theoretical.

"Did you miss me?" Root asks playfully as she steps forward and swiftly tazes Shaw. The teasing attitude seems to come out of her mouth without any conscious effort on her part. Anger, and something else, flares across the other woman's visage, even as it contorts with the pain from the electricity coursing through her body

"We're gonna have so much fun together," Root adds as she drugs the now helpless other woman.


	3. Occupy: Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Root has been caged, and even the whole of Finch's library is not enough to keep her mind completely occupied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. It turned out that the middle section needed a complete re-write, and I've spent most of this month drowning in work for my MRes.
> 
> Not sure when part 4 will be ready, but hopefully no more than a couple of weeks.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

It is never silent in Manhattan.

There's a reason they call it the 'city that never sleeps', after all.

Even here in the library, despite its solidly constructed bulk designed by staid Edwardian architects as a bulwark against the sound and fury of the flourishing city of the fin de siècle, Root finds that her days and nights are filled with the deep growl of traffic and the fluctuating buzz of humanity swarming past the walls, punctuated and counterpointed by the ever present wails of the sirens near and far that provide the syncopated heartbeat to the soundscape of the city.

But in her mind, there remains a gaping silence.

***

_"How can you be so certain, Ms. Groves, that The Machine does not wish you to be precisely where you are?"_

***

It's a question that's been occupying her mind for several nights now. During the day she can almost distract herself with the ample reading material, the occasional snatches of conversation that drift to her cage from the other end of the hallway, and the regular interruptions for surprisingly good meals. She can even shut out the nagging persistence of it for short periods by channelling her annoyance at Harold's continuing refusal to use her preferred name. But, at night, curled up in the almost dark on the unexpectedly comfortable, but definitely small, padded bench, his question haunts her.

After all, everything she did - everything she was told to do - to aid Jason Greenfield was /necessary/. And that must, therefore, include having to get Shaw involved.

Root knows, better than Harold or any of the others, that there is shit coming down the line. That the time for playing hero, saving people one number at a time, is very much coming to an end. The Machine has seen… well, Root isn't quite sure what She's seen, since She was never much for sharing even before the Scooby Gang decided to lock her in the closet.

*As if taking me out of play, cutting me off from Her is going to stop whatever the hell it is that's coming!* she thinks angrily, as her thoughts start spiralling back on themselves again.

So, night after night, Root lies in her book-lined prison and wonders if, just for once, Harold might have actually been a little more right than usual.

***

_From the moment she finishes the call arranging her pick-up, standing in that poky, fake apartment with an unconscious CIA agent on the floor and Shaw giving her the evil eye of frustrated confusion, Root knew that she was going to lose her connection to The Machine, yet again. Of course, she's known that the possibility existed from the start of the mission. If nothing else, the items she was told to stash in a padded envelope under a bench by the park as 'backup' should have made it abundantly clear to anyone paying the slightest attention. And Root pays a great deal of attention to Her commands. However, at the point when 'possibly' crystallises into 'definitely', she finds herself suddenly hating the foreknowledge with a vengeance. For even when She's not actually speaking to her, just the slight irritating feel of the earpiece where it nestles in her ear canal has become a small source of comfort. Without it, Root knows she is, once again, alone against the world, and she hates how small that makes her feel. It's far too much like the kid she used to be, rather than the ice cold hacker-assassin she has worked so hard to remake herself as._

_Lonely and alone._

_Unloved._

_Right now, however, she's stuck in this dreary room, with several hours to kill before the silence descends and nothing more than apples to eat. As for the other woman, Shaw could be a statue for all the interaction she's offering. Having been almost chatty on the way to the apartment, by her standards anyway, she's become more than usually withdrawn and brooding since Root breezily explained what the 'package' she'd arranged to be picked up was, or rather, who._

_"You hungry?" she asks Shaw from her perch on the desk around a mouthful of apple, as much to break the oppressive silence, as anything. She's pretty sure that Shaw's a good enough soldier to take full advantage of downtime when it happens during a mission and to eat whatever turns up. In fact, Root's almost surprised that the smaller woman isn't sleeping yet, especially after her disturbed night. But, then again, there could be trust issues involved with that._

_"I could eat," is the extent of the gruff response from the other woman, who is prowling the small space like a caged tiger, glaring at anything and everything, except for the sprawled man, as if she could render it to ashes in a single glance._

_"Order in it is then," Root offers, faux brightness lifting her voice. "D'you fancy anything in particular?"_

_"Wings."_

Last of the great conversationalists, _she huffs to herself, as she dials a number as it's whispered in her ear and repeats an order for what sounds like a small mountain of food. The look on Shaw's face as she places the order is well beyond Root's ability to decrypt._

_That out of the way, and her apple finished down to a neat core, she takes another look at the guy on the floor. It's obvious they can't leave him where he's fallen. Even if that didn't raise alarms with the delivery guy, there's the agents who'll be coming to collect her tomorrow to consider. He's also not going to stay unconscious forever._

_Root sighs and slips off the desk, grabbing one of the zip ties._

_###_

_Their meal arrives some time later, piping hot and issuing the most amazing smelling steam from paper bags which are shiny in places with grease. Root is momentarily confused to also receive a six pack of cold beer, which must be fresh from the bodega down the street, if the condensation glistening wetly on the side of the brown bottles is anything to go by, but she gives the delivery guy a big cheery smile, and tips him well._

_"So, which one of you was the prude," asks Shaw, casually, as she pushes herself off the kitchenette counter, where she'd waited, out of the line of sight, Root now realises._

_"Uh?"_

_"You call my favourite wings place in New York, and order the Cole and Shaw blow out special verbatim, but are surprised when they remember the beverages…" she says collecting one of the bottles and neatly opening it. "Is your robot overlord scared I'll get you drunk and run off?"_

_"She is *not* a robot."_

_"Huh. *That's* what you got from that? Really?!"_

_There seems to be no need for further conversation as they work their way through the meal._

_###_

_While Root sips the last of her beer and contemplates whether the quantity of food she has just watched Shaw consume was actually physically possible for a woman her size, the former agent in question goes methodically about returning the apartment to the same state of dismal sterility it wore when they arrived._

_"You could stop watching and actually help, you know."_

_The comment breaks the silence and takes Root by surprise, and she's more than a little embarrassed to have been caught staring._

_"But where would the fun be in that, Sameen?" she drawls, remembering the way the other woman deployed flirtation as a weapon during their first encounter._

_Her reward is something that sounds a lot like a growl of frustration from Shaw, who then pushes Root's elbows off the table so she can finish wiping it down._

_She's pretty sure the other woman won't try and kill her before this operation is finished and confident that The Machine will keep her safe when she does make her move. She's decided that she might as well take this opportunity to learn more about Shaw, even if that's going to be via actions and reactions rather than conversation. Root doesn't know why She decided to get them to work together on this, but it's been fruitful so far, and she could almost get used to not being alone all the time._

_"Well, if you're not gonna help, get some sleep. Take the bed," offers Shaw, waving towards the final room in the apartment where there are a couple of beds and a flat screen TV, like a medium-crappy motel. Of course, there's also a burly, tazed and drugged CIA agent tied up on the floor in there. "One of us should get a decent night."_

_"She's not..." Root shakes her head, knowing Shaw's doing it on purpose. "I think I'll crash here, actually. I think that guy snores."_

_"Whatever," mutters Shaw, and it's her last word for the night._

_It takes Root a long time to stop brooding about the day ahead and find sleep, by which time Shaw has found a spot where she can see and easily access both the main door and the bedroom and has folded herself into a comfortable position to wait out the remaining hours. When she wakes again, an indeterminate time later, beer insistent in her bladder, the other woman seems not to have moved a muscle._

_Around dawn the smell of coffee pulls her up from a tangled web of dreams. Shaw waits surprisingly patiently until she decides that Root's fully aware before handing her a steaming mug. Then she unfolds herself like a cat and stalks away to the bathroom._

_###_

_Root's really not worried about being locked up by the CIA. The Machine has told her there's more to do after this, so this bit must be survivable. Which means that it's definitely not fear, not even of the coming silence, that's making her heart pound and her mouth dry. The concern underlying the piercing glare that Shaw's giving her as she stands so close preparing to take her earwig, however…_

_"Sundown. Ottawa. Left, right, left right. One. Two. Three."_

_She blurts out the machine's final instructions, because she has nothing else she can say. No words to express her trust in The Machine, in Shaw, that are appropriate for this moment._

_It isn't, she realises, just losing her connection to the machine that makes her feel like a socially inept teenager again._

_"You say the sweetest things."_

_Root smiles at the sarcastic quip, even as she hears the lock engage._

In the cool of library, caged and cut off once more, Root shifts in her sleep. One hand curls up around her ear protectively as she recalls in her dreams the surprising gentleness of the other woman's warm, calloused fingers as they brushed over the lobe.

***

She can't deny the way her heart leapt when she saw the small, fierce woman appear behind the Vigilance thugs. The instruction to leave the access hatch open when she took Jason down into the tunnel made sudden sense, then. Like so many of Her commands did after the fact.

The Machine might not have known in advance that she'd run the machine pistol dry getting to this point, but Root's pretty sure She'd have factored the possibility into Her calculations. So she's possibly only bluffing a little when she tells Shaw that she was expecting her.

Their banter is coming a little more easily now, and Root finds that she can actually imagine herself working beside Shaw more often in the future. Working and, who knows, maybe more. There is something compelling - thrilling, even - about the other woman, especially when she's standing that close, that Root would really like to explore further.

Replaying the moment now, as she has done repeatedly since she was marooned here, she feels sure that there were no warning signs that she should have spotted. Shaw's move seemed to come out of nowhere, and Root was unconscious before she'd even registered it happening.

And here's the crux of the question. Did The Machine know?

Root has to assume that She has been paying at least as much attention to Shaw as she's worked numbers with Harold and his merry band as Root herself has. More, probably, given her greater access. That being the case, She'd have known that Shaw could be persuaded into helping with her mission, but it would also mean that She'd have known that she'd turn Root in to Harold and friends as soon as was practicable. A possibility that Root herself had overlooked, perhaps through the power of wishful thinking.

And, since there's no point in not being completely honest with herself, Root might also be prepared to admit that She's probably noticed just how distracting she finds Shaw.

This isn't her first pass through the logic of the situation and, frustratingly, every loop makes it seem more, not less, plausible.

Damn, but Root hates it when Harold is right.


End file.
